We have coached many people from all walks of life through midlife career changes in different companies and in our personal career coaching practice. Eventually we came to a standard template that works for most people thinking of changing careers.

The key issue we found is that many people think they are their jobs. When asked them who they are and most people answered I am a “Doctor”, I am an “IT Professional”, or “I am a Teacher” they in some way link their person to their job or their last qualification.

The specific work you feel you can do the best or want to do the best defines who you are. For example, a project manager answered I am an accountant 20 years ago.

During a midlife career change, it is critical that you know what kind of work you want to do more of and what kind of work you want to do less of.

Exploring what you want to do less of and more of in your new career

If you are clear on exactly what you want, it becomes easy to communicate your “Career Change Message” to the right place and the right people. With a clear message, you can make smooth transition in a midlife career change. You have years of work experience and abilities and these skills are worth much to companies. Even though your current work experience might not overlap 100% with your new direction, your skills and workplace experience is still worth gold.

If you are planning a midlife career change, it is very important to get the exact job you want in the precise industry of your choice and in the geographical area, you want to work. The chances that you will make a major career change again later in your life are small, which makes the career change choices you make now incredibly important.

Remember you are the only steward of your work life, what you do and what you earn. No one else really cares.

Let us begin to get clarity on your mid life career change

First, let me ask you a very important question.

Do you believe you have a choice? It is extremely important you absolutely believe you have choices, be confident in yourself and your life experience. To make a midlife career change is a major move; you need to get your mind in the right place. Your confidence will shine though in everything you do from here on forward.

We truly live in the best time ever in access to knowledge, communication and travel resources.

Now let us follow a process to gain that critical clarity in your communication on the industry and the work you want. Clarity is vital in middle-life career changes.

Which industry do you enjoy working in? Identify the products, services, development, people and the contribution you will make. Be sufficiently clear and be ready to adapt your message with input from others in friends, family and colleagues. Once you are clear on where you want to go, you must clearly communicate how the company, division, team, suppliers and clients you want to join and serve will benefit.

Communicate your message to people you know and ask them to send it to people they know. Identify and engage key people in the company, team of division you want to join. Be clear how the company, division, suppliers and clients will benefit.

Be visible and get involved, engage in the places and work you want to do.

About career change and resumes

Too many people hope their resumes will find work for them. Your resume is important, but it is much more important to be clear on what you want. Before you start writing your resume, get your story straight, know what kind of work you want and be 100% sure in which industry you want to work.

Notes for midlife career changers:

Be flexible on starting salary and expectations of compensation for work done.

Communicate the work you did before, during and after the tasks above.

Useful tools for career changes:

Do a sweep of what you know and who you know.

Do a sweep of what is in your diary that does not belong there and say no to the things that does not move you forward.

These tests will help you identify your main areas of personal strength. It is important to understand what work you enjoy doing and keep on developing your career in that direction. Do more of what you like and delegate the things you do not enjoy doing.

Please note that career tests like these are guidelines only. Use the results of these tests to make up your own mind on specific career choices. You gave to trust your instinct and not follow the advice given in any career test blindly. Use the test results to guide your natural instant towards what kind of work you enjoy doing.

6. http://www.3smartcubes.com/pages/tests/career_skills/career_skills_instructions.asp
“These are the questions one must think over when looking at career options. It is very important to have a good basic idea of where your strong points lie and what your weaknesses are. This test shows you how to recognize your abilities and how to turn your weaknesses into strong points. This information will increase your opportunities at work and it’ll lead to success in everyday life.”

2.1 PERSONALITY HISTORY

The complex uniqueness of every human being makes interacting and working with others exciting. Each one approaches his or her life and thus, his or her career differently. We all have choices to make and can respond to each interaction. With the right competencies, we can thrive by acknowledging human differences and uniqueness.

These days we have many career choices. However, how do you go about making your choices? Learn to choose carefully what you involve yourself in and how you respond to an activity and feedback. Always relax, think and respond in your own best interest and in the best interest of your group. Remember also that it is nearly impossible to always satisfy everyone, use your rational judgement to make decisions that will benefit the maximum amount of people. Grow your personality traits and preferences by choosing from your experiences. Each individual or group has some level of choice about whom and what to become involved in and with. You yourself choose your actions and responses to a certain degree. Master the processes to exercise your choice of involvement, choice of action and choice of response. The outcome will be that you will thrive. You will develop competencies in communicating with yourself and with others and will optimise your current personality traits and preferences.

You are aware of the following points. However, I want you to become even more aware that we differ from each other, have individual preferences and dislikes and can choose to change and adapt. When you operate naturally, there is neither stress nor low negative stress. However, should you stay in an adapted mode for too long, you will experience stress that ultimately becomes unbearable. Rather enjoy learning. Regard it as fun. Learn what you enjoy and choose work that reflects this enjoyment.

Personality theories have a history that reflects the context of the time in which they were developed. In this course, you will use this information as a guide to know and communicate your own traits and preferences better. There is never a finite test that officially reflects your whole being. Rather it is an exploration and discovery of your traits, current preferences and choices!

Module 1, Unit 2, Activity 1

Gain an awareness of the richness of models and theories. The freedom exists to explore, discover and choose for yourself.

1. Discuss the personality traits and factors among yourselves in the work group. How can exploration and discovery of personality theories and of your personality type be helpful in work choices?

2. Record your findings in your MiCareer Book under the roles of candidate, observer and facilitator.

Write about three sentences under each role. (Refer to Tutorial Letter PCAR01V/102/2008 Activity 7 to define the roles clearly).

In this unit, you will get to know your preferences, as described by personality theories. You will apply this knowledge in practical applications and in discussions with others. You can repeat the exercises and facilitate others in their exploration, discovery and communication of their preferences and traits. You will learn to show other people the vast number of choices that are available. There are many suitable careers for you and you will learn to choose the work best suited to your preferences. You should start having fun right away.

Learn how to communicate and apply your preferences or traits. Communicating your preferences contributes to expanding your choices since others will get to know how much you enjoy your work. As you engage with more people with greater ease, you expand your opportunities and you gain knowledge. Seeing as we are all different, it is essential that you are always aware of your unique preferences and traits. Your work and career could be to give others the opportunity to explore and discover their unique preferences and traits, to guide them to access identified opportunities and explore and discover local opportunities and resources for themselves.

Remember to breathe deeply and slowly, flex your fingers quickly and then relax! Our natural personality emerges when we are relaxed and thinking clearly.

Planning a career is a life-long process – you grow and slowly change over time.

So, how do we become adept at the very process of driving these life-long processes? You choose your responses, activities, work, your involvements and your network of support. This is a patient, life-long process like learning to walk and talk. Choose someone in the field you are interested in, get involved with them and learn from that person’s actions. Observe the person and understand how you can achieve your aims.

2.2 EXPLORE YOUR PERSONALITY

It is important to remember that there are many free personality exploration and discovery theories and tests on the Internet for you to use. It is your role as facilitator, to take your candidate to the internet and explore the suggested tests. Tests are simply a means of exploration and discovery where we are allowed to make our own choices and where we can enjoy the results and the new words we learn to describe ourselves.

The tests originate from many cultures, so I suggest you learn the words and the meanings from a dictionary.Once you have done this, discuss the concepts/words with your local leaders to improve your understanding. This leads to the best results. Enrich your understanding of terms and current workplace meaning of the words to help your potential clients better. The differences in meaning among terms might surprise you! However, please enjoy these differences in meaning and enrich yourself by making the additional meanings part of your understanding. You can even talk to business people, professionals and other community members to clarify your understanding. Dictionaries are a tool with which to further explore and discover wider meanings of the words and concepts used to describe your own and other people’s preferences and traits.

Keep in mind that your responses to these exploratory tests should be made within the context of your current situation. Your responses will depend on your mood, circumstances as well as how much you know about the current situation for which you choose the answers. In other words, you can do this exploratory test again in the near future and you will probably get slightly different results. Simply discuss the changes and differences to learn from the changes. This is a great opportunity for exploration and discoveries.

Record the activity as facilitator, observer and candidate in your MiCareer Book.

Optional extra http://web.tickle.com/tests/picperson/

Watch out for advertisements! Say no to all advertisements. Never send your email address without checking with others.

It is important to get in touch with experts – people who have gained experience and are recognised in their industry. Engaging such experts is a key method of gaining knowledge and experience and broadening your own knowledge. Keep in mind that this is a value exchange meeting; in other words, try to give the expert as much value as you gain. This can be in the form of referral to future business or by putting him or her in contact with someone he or she needs to meet whom you may or may not already know. There is a multitude of ways to make this meeting the beginning of a longer term value exchange experience. Be creative!

Learn from these professionals and keep your career guidance workshop and online exhibition in Module 5 in mind. It will be very beneficial if the expert can explain his or her field of expertise to your candidates/potential clients.

Module 1, Unit 2, Activity 3

Get in touch with a registered expert in the field of personality tests and psychology. You can use the person that you got in touch with in Tutorial 102 Unit 11 Activity 4. This can be someone who is a psychologist, psychiatrist, Human Resources professional or a social worker. Find a person working in the field of human resources. Show him/her what you have done and what you have learnt. Discuss questions with them such as:

What is the overlap and line between free discoveries while growing self-awareness, and professional tests with advice that only professionals may give?

Why did they become involved in their current career?

What can a person gain from doing personality tests?

What do they suggest you do in a situation of conflict?

Ask more of this type of questions – as many as five questions.

Carefully record everything the expert says and write it down. Put this in your MiCareerBook.

What are your thoughts about the subject?

You have to verify that you spoke to this expert. This can be done by taking a photo of yourself and the expert and loading it on your computer. You can also get a signature from the expert and scan it into your computer. Add the address, telephone number and email address of the person you spoke to. Note that you may approach anyone at an internet café or someone you know with some IT knowledge to help you.

2.3 CONCLUSION

You have learnt about and that people have different personality traits and preferences. You also learnt that you can apply the results in your own life and that you can repeat the processes by facilitating the same exploration and discoveries for others. You learnt about the tools of exploring your traits and preferences, but more importantly, you learnt the reason why this is useful and where you are going to apply it.

Your unique complex traits and preferences make you a wonderfully unique person. Your chosen work in any chosen career should be a unique fit and experience. The process of exploring and discovering your traits and preferences is a life-long one and this is the message you should give the people you guide. Your traits and preferences continually develop, adapt and change. So will the work you choose and thus your jobs and subsequent careers.

Making career choices based on what is unknown is always a source of uncertainty for most. We fear that which we do not know. Imagine looking down a very dark tunnel running straight down into the earth. You are expected to jump into this hole, you expect this of yourself or others expect this of you. To you this hole looks like it just goes down forever, a never ending drop into a very deep abyss…

Actually the hole is only two meters deep, but you don’t know that because you only see the black opening! We are too afraid to jump into this hole simply because we know nothing of it.

Many a time it is the same with ones career choices. We are expected to make a career choice, be it a big change or a small task in our current career; it feels like we are jumping into that ‘very deep’ unknown hole. Especially with the small everyday career choices at the office, imagine having to jump into unknown holes ten times a day!

How do we usually react to such situations? We just don’t do it, we ignore it or we take forever to take action; it is just too fearful and unknown. Many a time one will miss a great opportunity, other times it was the right career choice, one will never be a hundred percent certain before making a jump.

Read the coaching session on career choices based on the unknown…

How does one overcome this fear of the unknown?

Freely use our Career Development Guide and make the information on the following pages your own, these skills and knowledge will make big and small career choices much simpler:

Emotional awareness

Signal to transform into a positive mindset

Turn all emotional experiences into selected actions

The glad game

Productive listening

Effective questioning

The decision making process

The issue resolution model

The process of transformation

The need for continuous goal clarification

Closing the feedback gap

Before we go any further, the most important fact to remember is to jump slowly! A sudden jump will almost always hurt. For example if one realizes it is time to change jobs, careers, cars, anything, do it slowly over a period of time and with the right information.

Gather the most information concerning the specific career choice one possibly can, make an informed jump .

Talk to the people around you; family, friends, colleagues, people you trust. Frame the situation you find yourself in for them and listen to what they think, but really listen and take their advice seriously; even if you think it might be senseless information at the time. One is usually very surprised at the wisdom that exists in others we share with.

Another time tested method is to write about this career choice you are facing. Write down all the questions that come to mind. Answer the ones you are able to answer, leave the others for later. Check with others, what they think would be the best answers to the questions, the ones already answered as well. Just keep on writing, anything and everything that comes to mind. It is amazing how things clear when they are out of ones head and somewhere else, there is now space for new truths to take shape. This method is equally effective for any challenging choice one might face.

Frame your mind

Continuously frame your mind for the time when one will go from information to choice to action. In more direct terms, bull%&*# your mind into taking positive action. Motivate your mind into believing that taking the action will come to success; believe it and your voice and attitude will reflect it. Think positive!

If you jump and fall a bit hard, don’t stay there too long, your muscles will start cramping! While recovering from a hard fall, take time and reflect on which choices could have been made differently and which information one did not have. Reflection is good, but not to be overused. We were built to jump and grow and run and build, ones system will recover. Get up and move.

Slowly. Taking action based on a choice would sometimes be faster, other times slower, never instant. At the very least apply the twenty four hour rule; especially when another person angered or frustrated you, an instant answer, remark or response is never the desired reaction. If you are angry or frustrated, allow twenty four hours to pass before you react or jump in.

A career choice with longer terms effects, for example changing careers, should be made even slower. Weeks, months could and probably should pass before making the jump. Phase into action bit by bit. Remember delegation. When changing careers, jobs, departments or positions, don’t leave gaps behind. Ensure others will be able to successfully do the job you did and you will always be welcome again!

Coaching session on Fear of the unknown career choices

Dawie

I have an opportunity to go and work with Aleph. I currently work for a company called New-World and do not know if I should change jobs. What do you think?

Nicholas

Do you enjoy your current job?

Dawie

No, I want to do graphic communication and am currently a salesman. Doing what I love doing, graphic communications, part time.

Nicholas

Why do you not want to change jobs / careers if you will do full time what you are doing part time now?

Dawie

I am not 100% certain what it is I will be doing. There is the probability that I will do some of the things I want to do, but I might have other responsibilities.

Nicholas

Would these other responsibilities be a problem to you? If some of the work would be in graphic communication? As you grow in the skill of delegation, you could always delegate more of the work you do not enjoy doing.

Dawie

No it would probably not.

Nicholas

How would you get more information on what would be expected of you in this position working with Aleph?

Dawie

I would set up a meeting with a more senior person in the company and talk to them about what it is I would be doing. Maybe talk to some other employees of the company and get a feel for how the company operates.

Nicholas

If you like what you hear and see would you then be more comfortable making a decision?

Dawie

I would get all the information I can, share this with the people around me, for example friends and family, and hear what they have to say. Once I feel comfortable that I have sufficient information and feedback to base a decisive choice on, I will take action.

Career choices based on the unknown

Making career choices based on what is unknown is always a source of uncertainty for most, especially for those considering a midlife career change. We fear that which we do not know. Imagine looking down a very dark tunnel running straight down into the earth. You are expected to jump into this hole, you expect this of yourself or others expect this of you. To you this hole looks like it just goes down forever, a never ending drop into a very deep abyss…

Actually the hole is only two meters deep, but you don’t know that because you only see the black opening! We are too afraid to jump into this hole simply because we know nothing of it.

I Explain

Many a time it is the same with one’s career choices. We are expected to make a career choice, be it a big change or a small task in our current career; it feels like we are jumping into that ‘very deep’ unknown hole. Especially with the small everyday career choices at the office, imagine having to jump into unknown holes ten times a day!

How do we usually react to such situations? We just don’t do it, we ignore it or we take forever to take action; it is just too fearful and unknown. Many a time one will miss a great opportunity, other times it was the right career choice, one will never be a hundred percent certain before making a jump.

Read the coaching session on career choices based on the unknown…

I Ask

How does one overcome this fear of the unknown?

I Answer

Use our Walk and Talk guide and make the information on the following pages your own, these skills and knowledge will make big and small career choices much simpler:

Before we go any further, the most important fact to remember is to jump slowly! A sudden jump will almost always hurt. For example if one realizes it is time to change jobs, careers, cars, anything, do it slowly over a period of time and with the right information.

Gather the most information concerning the specific career choice one possibly can, make an informed jump .

Talk to the people around you; family, friends, colleagues, people you trust. Frame the situation you find yourself in for them and listen to what they think, but really listen and take their advice seriously; even if you think it might be senseless information at the time. One is usually very surprised at the wisdom that exists in others we share with.

I Advise

Another time tested method is to write about this career choice you are facing. Write down all the questions that come to mind. Answer the ones you are able to answer, leave the others for later. Check with others, what they think would be the best answers to the questions, the ones already answered as well. Just keep on writing, anything and everything that comes to mind. It is amazing how things clear when they are out of your head and somewhere else, there is now space for new truths to take shape. This method is equally effective for any challenging choice one might face.

Frame your mind

I Answer

Continuously frame your mind for the time when you will go from information to choice to action. In more direct terms, bulldoze your mind into taking positive action. Motivate your mind into believing that taking the action will come to success; believe it and your voice and attitude will reflect it. Think positive!

If you jump and fall a bit hard, don’t stay there too long, your muscles will start cramping! While recovering from a hard fall, take time and reflect on which choices could have been made differently and which information one did not have. Reflection is good, but not to be overused. We were built to jump and grow and run and build, your system will recover. Get up and move.

I Ask

How does I safely make this jump?

I Answer

Slowly. Taking action based on a choice would sometimes be faster, other times slower, never instant. At the very least apply the twenty four hour rule; especially when another person angered or frustrated you, an instant answer, remark or response is never the desired reaction. If you are angry or frustrated, allow twenty four hours to pass before you react or jump in.

A career choice with longer terms effects, for example changing careers, should be made even slower. Weeks, months could and probably should pass before making the jump. Phase into action bit by bit. Remember delegation. When changing careers, jobs, departments or positions, don’t leave gaps behind. Ensure others will be able to successfully do the job you did and you will always be welcome again!

Coaching session on Fear of the Unknown Career Choices

Dawie

I have an opportunity to go and work with Aleph. I currently work for a company called New-World and do not know if I should change jobs. What do you think?

Nicholas

Do you enjoy your current job?

Dawie

No, I want to do graphic communication and am currently a salesman. Doing what I love doing, graphic communications, part time.

Nicholas

Why do you not want to change jobs / careers if you will do full time what you are doing part time now?

Dawie

I am not 100% certain what it is I will be doing. There is the probability that I will do some of the things I want to do, but I might have other responsibilities.

Nicholas

Would these other responsibilities be a problem to you? If some of the work would be in graphic communication? As you grow in the skill of delegation, you could always delegate more of the work you do not enjoy doing.

Dawie

No it would probably not.

Nicholas

How would you get more information on what would be expected of you in this position working with Aleph?

Dawie

I would set up a meeting with a more senior person in the company and talk to them about what it is I would be doing. Maybe talk to some other employees of the company and get a feel for how the company operates.

Nicholas

If you like what you hear and see would you then be more comfortable making a decision?

Dawie

I would get all the information I can, share this with the people around me, for example friends and family, and hear what they have to say. Once I feel comfortable that I have sufficient information and feedback to base a decisive choice on, I will take action.

Find a career coach with the right relationships to develop your career and expand your career choices. Career Builder identified the essential career builder skills; use them to turn any career challenge into a career growth opportunity.

When experiencing frustration or fear in your career use these emotions as opportunities to fast track your career growth; use them to pro-actively grow your career!

Find a career coach ». Career Builder assisted and is still assisting thousands of people in their career growth. We worked with more than thirty entrepreneurs and coached them through the process of building successful running companies. We are still working with this group of entrepreneurs and their companies as well as a new group of young entrepreneurs. Any successful business takes seven years to build. Career Builder coaching processes are forged in the fire of building these successful businesses and the development of the people running them; these processes are being used in many other companies as well.

We have found a few cornerstone skills to be essential in building a thriving career or business. Career Builder shares these with you before going onto our Find a Career Coach process. We discuss these skills in the form of coaching sessions on the Career Builder Coaching page and in more detail on the Actionable Career Skills page, these skills include:

Delegation

Create your own compelling events

Fear of the unknown

Pathologies

Frustration is just a trigger

Click here for the complete list…

Successful people and companies have a natural way of handling challenging situations. Career Builder observed, applied and understands this natural process.

Career Builder’s Walk and Talk method of career coaching was developed working with the best. Studying at Harvard Business School (Owner/President Management program) we came to understand the application of these processes in companies even better. Some of the Harvard Business School case studies included companies like Hewlett Packard, Volvo, Taco Bell, PepsiCo and many others. In the early seventies we were exposed to and learned from Hewlett Packard’s company processes; later this knowledge were implemented in our own companies.

We developed career coaching contracts and learned which processes worked and which did not. All these experiences with career coaching led us to the current simple set of skills we base our career coaching processes on. You can own and direct these processes to build your career. Work in a group when implementing these processes or take part in the Career Builder community forums; it always works best to implement a process with a group. The group can be directly or indirectly involved; or contact a Career Builder coach.

Where would you like to go?

Find a career coach

The difference between coaching, mentoring and councelling

Learn more about mentorship

Learn more about career councelling

At Career Builder we identified a few simple cornerstone skills we base our career coaching on. Click here for a complete list of these Career builder skills. We share these with you before going onto the Find a Career Coach process:

1. Delegate and grow

What is delegation?

Delegation is when one is able to give the work you do not enjoy doing to another who does enjoy doing that work, but you stay responsible for getting the job done on time. Successful delegation is when another person excels in their careers because they enjoy doing the work you do not enjoy doing or do not have time for. Read more on delegation…

A coaching session on delegation.

An article on delegation written by a Career Builder coach.

Read a case study on delegation:

Barry du Plessis

Leigh Harrison

2. Create your own compelling events / deadlines

Three tips to fast-track your career you can use right now:

Get a career coach by becoming a “sort of” expert in their interests and talk to them about these interests.

Find someone that loves the work you hate, delegate to them while staying responsible for this work.

When frustrated, ask yourself what is causing the frustration? Address this challenge before it explodes.

Successful company builders know that people can and should be stretched. Unre Visagie built many successful companies. He stretches the people that work with him in building these companies; people discover depths within them they never knew they had. The knowledge successful company builders have is to know when to stop expecting more from an individual and allow that specific growth curve to play itself out. The trick is that anyone wanting to grow their careers can apply this same “pressure” to themselves in building their own successful careers. Have a career builder attitude!

Read more on creating your own compelling events and learn from a coaching session on deadlines and compelling events….

3. Fear of the unknown

Making career choices based on what is unknown is always a source of uncertainty for most. We fear that which we do not know. Imagine looking down a very dark tunnel running straight down into the earth. You are expected to jump into this hole, you expect this of yourself or others expect this of you. To you this hole looks like it just goes down forever, a never ending drop into a very deep abyss…

Actually the hole is only two meters deep, but you don’t know that because you only see the black opening! We are too afraid to jump into this hole simply because we know nothing of it.

Read more on Fear of the unknown, you will also find a coaching session others learned from…

3. Find a career coach

Finding a career coach with the right relationships to develop your career and expand your choices is a simple one; it might not be quick though. One will practice engaging different people for the skills and knowledge you require from them, through being of value to them. Over time one becomes practiced and comfortable with the process of engaging experts, using the necessary skills in a natural way. If you have not yet, read through the list of skills Career Builder identified as fundamental career skills. This list matured through years of career and business building.

A good place to start is to have a broad understanding of coaching, mentoring and counseling:

Coaching

Mentoring

Counseling

When working with an expert as a mentor, be aware not to fall in the trap of counseling.

Engaging an expert person for they’re knowledge, resources and skills, there are a few skills one will use:

Emotional awareness

Signal to transform into a positive mindset

Turn all emotional experiences into selected actions

Growing a win-win mindset

Interpersonal skills through actions

Covey’s Seven Habits of highly effective people

Giving and receiving information

Responding to anger signals

Productive listening

Effective questioning

The next step

Get to know the expert’s environment. Following is a list of possible actions to take, add or remove actions that fit your unique situation.

Read about the individual in books, newspaper, magazines and on the internet.

Talk to others about the individual.

What is this person interested in, hobbies, current projects, which topics is of interest to him/her?

Strive to spend time within the circles where he or she spends time.

Through gathering this information, always try to identify places where you will be able to add value to this individual. How would be able to make a positive difference to this individuals life? For example, the expert individual you would like to work with likes to build model aircraft. You are able to acquire such models at a discounted price. You have something of value to offer!

Remember to always be professional in your approach! Build relationship in an open manner, don’t be clandestine about your dealings, you might look like a stalker!

Talk to the expert every chance you get, share with them that you would love to learn from them. Ask how they think you would be able to add value them in exchange for their time. Always have a few suggestions how you would be able to add value.

Ask for advice and practice your “expert acquiring” skills at our community forums.

Find a career coach will grow and mature over the next months. Sign up for our Career Builder Ezine if you would like to stay up to date.

The complete list of Career Builder skills:

Delegation

Deadlines or Compelling events

We fear what we do not know or understand

Pathologies

Frustration is just a trigger

Flexible and adaptive way of handling people

Work in the center, not the individual

Having an “Everybody benefits” attitude

Burnout

Stress

Motivation

Find a career coach in your environment

I Advise

Find a career coach with the right relationships to develop your career and expand your career choices. Career Builder identified the essential career builder skills; use them to turn any career challenge into a career growth opportunity.

When experiencing frustration or fear in your career use these emotions as opportunities to fast track your career growth; use them to pro-actively grow your career!

Find a career coach

Career Builder assisted and is still assisting thousands of people in their career growth. We worked with more than thirty entrepreneurs and coached them through the process of building successful running companies. We are still working with this group of entrepreneurs and their companies as well as a new group of young entrepreneurs. Any successful business takes seven years to build.

Career Builder coaching processes are forged in the fire of building these successful businesses and the development of the people running them; these processes are being used in many other companies as well.

We have found a few cornerstone skills to be essential in building a thriving career or business. Career Builder shares these with you before going onto our Find a Career Coach process. We discuss these skills in the form of coaching sessions on the Career Builder Coaching page and in more detail on the Actionable Career Skills page, these skills include:

Delegation

Deadlines or Compelling events

We fear what we do not know or understand

Pathologies

Frustration is just a trigger

Flexible and adaptive way of handling people

Work in the center, not the individual

Having an “Everybody Benefits” attitude

Burnout

Stress

Motivation

I Explain

Successful people and companies have a natural way of handling challenging situations. Career Builder observed, applied and understands this natural process.

We developed career coaching contracts and learned which processes worked and which did not. All these experiences with career coaching led us to the current simple set of skills we base our career coaching processes on. You can own and direct these processes to build your career. Work in a group when implementing these processes or take part in the Career Builder community forums; it always works best to implement a process with a group. The group can be directly or indirectly involved; or contact a Career Builder coach.

1. Delegate and grow

What is delegation?

Delegation is when one is able to give the work you do not enjoy doing to another who does enjoy doing that work, but you stay responsible for getting the job done on time. Successful delegation is when another person excels in their careers because they enjoy doing the work you do not enjoy doing or do not have time for. Read more on delegation…

2. Create your own compelling events / deadlines

Three tips to fast-track your career you can use right now:

Successful company builders know that people can and should be stretched. Unre Visagie built many successful companies. He stretches the people that work with him in building these companies; people discover depths within them they never knew existed. The knowledge successful company builders have is to know when to stop expecting more from an individual and allow that specific growth curve to play itself out. The trick is that anyone wanting to grow their careers can apply this same “pressure” to themselves in building their own successful careers. Have a career builder attitude!Read more on creating your own compelling events and learn from a coaching session on deadlines and compelling events….

3. Fear of the unknown

Making career choices based on what is unknown is always a source of uncertainty for most. We fear that which we do not know. Imagine looking down a very dark tunnel running straight down into the earth. You are expected to jump into this hole, you expect this of yourself or others expect this of you. To you this hole looks like it just goes down forever, a never ending drop into a very deep abyss…
Actually the hole is only two meters deep, but you don’t know that because you only see the black opening! We are too afraid to jump into this hole simply because we know nothing of it.Read more on Fear of the unknown, you will also find a coaching session others learned from…

Find a career coach

Finding a career coach with the right relationships to develop your career and expand your choices is a simple one; it might not be quick though. One will practice engaging different people for the skills and knowledge you require from them, through being of value to them. Over time one becomes practiced and comfortable with the process of engaging experts, using the necessary skills in a natural way. If you have not yet, read through the list of skills Career Builder identified as fundamental career skills. This list matured through years of career and business building.
A good place to start is to have a broad understanding of coaching, mentoring and counseling:

Coaching

Mentoring

Counseling

When working with an expert as a mentor, be aware not to fall in the trap of counseling.

Engaging an expert person for their knowledge, resources and skills, there are a few skills one will use:

The next step

Get to know the expert’s environment. Following is a list of possible actions to take, add or remove actions that fit your unique situation.

Read about the individual in books, newspaper, magazines and on the internet.

Talk to others about the individual.

What is this person interested in: hobbies, current projects, which topics is of interest to him/her?

Strive to spend time within the circles where he or she spends time.

Through gathering this information, always try to identify places where you will be able to add value to this individual. How would you be able to make a positive difference to this individual’s life? For example, the expert individual you would like to work with likes to build model aircraft. You are able to acquire such models at a discounted price. You have something of value to offer!

I Advise

Remember to always be professional in your approach! Build relationship in an open manner, don’t be clandestine about your dealings; you might look like a stalker!

Talk to the expert every chance you get, share with them that you would love to learn from them. Ask how they think you would be able to add value them in exchange for their time. Always have a few suggestions how you would be able to add value.

Ask for advice and practice your “expert acquiring” skills at our community forums.

I become so frustrated! Every time I am about to reach my goal the goal posts are shifted! I try to plot the straightest path to reach my goal but it feels like I am meandering all over the show.

It very seldom happens that we steer directly towards our goals, like an arrow on its way to its target. Remember that if human beings don’t have goals, they will not achieve all they could achieve, but…

The method in which we strive towards our goals is always a meandering path.

The fact that the environment is constantly changing calls for agility in reaching goals.

Upon reaching certain goals we have to move on to realizing new goals to avoid life losing its challenge.

Maxwell’s journey of life illustrates to us the fact that we are engaged in a continuous goal clarification process and that we can expect to find both frustration and joy in meandering towards our goals.

Continuous goal clarification is an integral part of managing your career as well setting your KRA’s.

Goal clarification is a continuous process

Chapter 7 p.3

I Ask

I become so frustrated! Every time I am about to reach my goal the goal posts are shifted! I try to plot the straightest path to reach my goal but it feels like I am meandering all over the show.

I Answer

It very seldom happens that we steer directly towards our goals, like an arrow on its way to its target. Remember that if human beings don’t have goals, they will not achieve all they could achieve, but…

The method in which we strive towards our goals is always a meandering path.

The fact that the environment is constantly changing calls for agility in reaching goals.

Upon reaching certain goals we have to move on to realizing new goals to avoid life losing its challenge.

I Explain

Maxwell’s journey of life illustrates to us the fact that we are engaged in a continuous goal clarification process and that we can expect to find both frustration and joy in meandering towards our goals.

I Advise

Continuous goal clarification is an integral part of managing your career as well setting your KRA’s.

What others are saying:

Llewelyn VenterCurrent Professional Coaching Student

"Roughly 3 weeks ago I was in a terrible place. I was frustrated, full of fear, had run out of options, and felt I had nowhere
left to go - a really BAD space. Unre, within 6 hours, kickstarted a process of turning this completely around - through what
I like to think of as an "intervention" of sorts - solid situation coaching and making me aware of options I didn't even know
existed. 3 weeks on, and my life has literally taken a 180-degree turn for the better, I feel relaxed, in control of my life again,
confident and full of positive energy. The journey has just begun - here's to my coach, mentor and councillor - thanks Unre!"Click here to view my Linked-In Profile...